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| Fairies |
The 9th Art Exhibition in the Forest of Yokohama has opened its gate on 19 September in the same forest as the last year, i.e. next to Yokohama Zoorasia. The show will be held till 23 October, which is organized, as always, by GROUP the Creation and Voice of the Woods 創造と森の声. (Phone/FAX: 045-933-1460, Email: morinokoe2@yahoo.co.jp. Their Facebook is here.) Their activity is recognized with the city’s grant this year as one of the 27 groups in Yokohama for their contribution to connecting artistic creativity and ordinary lives of local community. They also cloud-fund the event at Motion Gallery (link here). In addition, we can either hand them money during the events, or transfer your donation to their postal order account (account # 00200-2-48335, account name: GROUP創造と森の声, … er, yeah, at Japan Post, i.e. no international monetary transfer via this route is possible). Regardless, the show is free of charge for visitors. We can check the detail of artists for 2016 from the Motion Gallery page.
This year’s show has 7 Japanese and 3
overseas artists: ASADA, Oka Noriaki 岡典明, Ishikuro Kazuo 石黒和夫, Kiga Youko 木賀陽子, Chikada Haruna 近田明奈, Horie Kazuma 堀江和真, Yoshikawa Youichiro
吉川陽一郎, Kang Hee Joon from Korea, Ri Eung Woo from Korea, and Thomas May
from Germany. Their workshops we can still catch on is ↓:
When?
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Where?
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What to do?
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With whom?
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Cost (yen)?
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Reservation necessary?
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9/25/2016 10:00
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Forest
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Costume of the Forest
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ASADA and Kiga Yoko
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500
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Yes
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10/23/2016 13:00
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Forest
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Music workshop with Okapi
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Okapi
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0
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No
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The easiest access to the place is to ride a bus. The most frequent service is either from JR Nakayama 中山 station or Sotetsu Tsurugamine 鶴ヶ峰 Station. There are the routes Asahi 11 and 15 both of which connect two stations. (From Nakayama, the time tables are here and here. From Tsurugamine, the tables are here.) If you take a bus from Nakayama, get off the bus at Kohdan-Shukaijoh-mae 公団集会場前. If you turn right from the bus stop, beyond the traffic light, you’ll find a building looks like an old school. It is now-defunct Hikarigaoka Elementary School ひかりが丘小学校 (as this Hikarigaoka Housing Complex becomes the town of elderly people with very few kids). If you ride a bus from Tsurugamine for Nishi-Hikarigaoka 西ひかりが丘, it actually takes you in front of this building at the bus stop, called Nishi-Hikarigaoka, the final stop. In any case, first, you walk to the gate of Hikarigaoka Elementary. It is a sort of a deformed crossing. Turn “left” there. Soon we’ll find a construction site for Yokohama Zoorasia Forest Park on the right, whose gate is still closed. Keep walking the paved road along the Forest Park site, and eventually you enter a small, paved and climbing-up road between the forest on the right and a retirement housing complex, Care Home Yokohama and VillaYokohama, on the left. Pass the top of the hill seeing a downing slope on the left between the Care Home and the Villa. Continue going 5m or so along the forest, and on the right we see the entrance for the exhibition.
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| Kohdan-Shukaijoh-mae
stop if you take a bus from Nakayama |
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| Nishi-Hikarigaoka
stop if you take a bus from Tsurugamine |
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| Former
Hikarigaoka Elementary School seen from the direction of the Exhibition |
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| Go ahead! To the right is … |
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| The
site for Zoorasia Forest Park still under construction and closed … The notice board says they plan to complete the thing by January 31, 2017. Oh … they built a bridge over the former bog ... |
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| The
road from Hikarigaoka Elementary becomes like this. Never mind. Just keep on going, then, |
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| You’ll find this banner next to the entrance of the exhibition. |
Another bus route we can use for the exhibition is the bus to Zoorasia. Use Asahi 10 to Zoorasia of Sotetsu from Yokohama or from Tsurugamine Station. There also is a City bus service, Route 136, to Zoorasia from JR Nakayama Station (time table, here). Get off the bus to Yokohama Zoorasia at its terminal (i.e. Zoorasia), and proceed further along for about 400m to the direction of North Gage (#2 Parking) of the Zoo. On the right, there will be a small gate with the sign GROUP the Creation and Voice of the Woods. If you visit the place during weekends, many Asahi 10 and Route 136 buses will take us to the North Gate of Zoorasia (the terminal stop) that is the closest to the exhibition entrance. When you leave the terminal stop of Zoorasia North Gate, go back a bit along the bus road, and on the left there is the sign for the GROUP.
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| The bus route to Zoorasia North Gate. There are many weekend services to the North Gate. |
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| The bus passes in front of the planned main gate for Zoorasia Forest Park. |
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| North Gate Terminal |
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| We walk back a bit … |
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| a bit … |
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| and reach to the gate leading us for the art show
on the left. If you walk from Zoorasia Main Gate, you’ll find this on your right. |
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| Entering the forest from the
gate, which is actually a popular route for off-road bikers in early weekend mornings. |
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| You’ll find the flyers for the
exhibition pasted here and there along the road. |
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| Walk straight till you find this bollard ahead. |
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| On the left of the buffer stop, there is the entrance for the show. |
On the opening day, the Group held a guided tour with the artists and a lunch-time party with 3 performance groups. tariTARI for Bali dance, Matej Kolenic for Slovak music, and Harmonica Creams for Irish Reels appeared on the stage. At the party space, they offer 500 yen Indonesian Bento box with a bottle of soft drink (free) or alcohol (well, you have to pay for this; their concession table provided several plates of tapas for 100 yen), and a bowl of Indonesian soup (free). It was actually very tasty lunch with the flavor of coconuts and kaffir lime leaves! I honestly thought 500 yen was a bargain. Although the concert for the 9th Art Exhibition in the Forest is minuscule compared with, say, Live at Pickathon, the venue is really surrounded by the trees and the atmosphere is comfortably warm. If you have a chance next year, please come and join the celebration of the opening day. tariTARI is a group of dancers including kids for Bali dance. For this occasion, they presented us a dance of two firebirds, an offering for the forest gods by kids’ dancers, and a dance depicting a part of the adventure of Bali prince who risked his life in forest to win the love of a princess. I happened to watch their performance from the direction where we can admire the installation by Eung Woo Ri in the background. The mythological tales of the dance looked more supernatural with a huge organic drop of dew … That was wonderful!
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| The dance of firebirds. The background over there is the installation by Ri. |
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| The dance of prince and princess |
Matej Kolenic is a musician for traditional Slovak instruments, who has lived in Japan for 3 years already. For the exhibition, he brought his fujara flute and (I think … if I am wrong, could you please let me know, Matej?) koncovka flute. I uploaded a part of his fujara performance at YouTube here. Thank you Matej for your permission! It was my first experience with Slovak traditional music. The forest was with rain, and his music danced with the sound of drops very naturally … The sunny (although it was raining), rhythmical, but a bit melancholic echo of wind pipes played with the ambiance of the forest, which made the whole experience curiously meditative. His music was full of soothing character. I loved it. He introduced us the shorter flute (… koncovka?) that does not have a hole. How did he manage it?
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| Matej with fujara |
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| This flute does not have a hole … how come? |
The third performer of the party was the Harmonica Creams that is a trio of Yoshito Kiyono (harmonica), Aiko Obuch (fiddle), and Koji Nagao (guitar) with the guest percussionist Yosuke Watanabe. They are very unique band of Japanese-Celtic music who obtained the 2012 grand-prix award at Festival de Ortigueira in Spain. Sure enough, the energy of their music vibrated the wet air of the forest, no matter what. I uploaded the part of their performance of the day here in YouTube: thank you for the permission, Harmonica Creams! For the encore, Yoshito invited all the audience to dance around the tent with their music. The place became a joyous celebration where all, from grandpas to kindergartners, artists, visitors, local moms, … hopped together in the forest. … In Japan, we have a kids’ song, “Fairies in the Forest,” that is a very cheerful song about dancing revelry of fairies in forest … merrier than the troops of Titania for the Midsummer Night Dream. I had a kind of flashback of childhood image of “Fairies in the Forest” with the dynamic tempo of Harmonica Creams. They have released their 4th album this April, “Alchemy,” produced with Brian Finnegan. Their next gig will be held in Shibuya WWW on October 7th. This is the band we should watch.
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| Harmonica Creams in the forest |
There are 11 large installations for The 9th Art Exhibition in the Forest of Yokohama, and 3 + α mini presentations. This is the map within the venue.
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| Although the forest now has crisscrossing
roads inside, the route of the exhibition is shown by these bright yellow arrows. Just follow them. In any case, as the place is surrounded by residential towns and the Zoorasia, it would be difficult to lose your way there. |
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| Installation #1 Thomas May Pink Flowers |
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Installation #2
Kazuma Horie
Building Flatland and a Number of
Its Failure
I have heard from my friend who works in the forest
that
"There is no flatland in the forest."
My simple personality thought
that "Try to make a flatland
in the forest."
It's also a Flatland of casually and the fleeting feeling float
in the air.
I made several piece of flatland using 200m of
fishing line of
nylon wrapped around
between some of trees depending of my senses.
I can't say it is Flatland accurate but
I think in fact that
mostly
when the people going to create something
probably it should not they
wanted to.
* The Artist invited the audience to stand
in front of the
paintings he situated within his installation.
He said watching the forest from
the paintings
was how he perceived the space.
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Installation #3
Noriaki Oka
The Ladder of the Forest
Imperceptibly been growing ladder, tangled in the other trees.
And dangle, and snuggle.
Era ladder naturally occurring
even without cutting down the trees
to processing!
Genetic manipulation and/or radioactivity,or something, anything ... so on, maybe even desk or chair will be sprouting and grow someday! |
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Installation #4
ASADA
"SHURO-san" (hemp palm)
is Smart.
This is somehow a feeling
of strangeness in this forest.
Stem Hair is shaggy,
and beautiful, green, smart leaves grow
in
indescribably imposing from the stem
... it's really fashionable!
I try to make personification
of this palm trees in such an
image.
I'm sure this person is"OSHARE (smart)-san" whose personality is diligent the laundry. |
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Installation #5
Hee Joon Kang
Gentle Space
This forest has wonderful natural spacewith some of the type of trees and variety of tall grass and you can see several kinds of insects. I would like to produce "Cocoon" which is the resting place for the insect. |
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Installation #6
Haruna Chikada
Dan Dan Dan
What happens when a human's standard is brought
in the forest
which has no standard size.
Whether the person is visible,whether the forest can be seen. |
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Installation #7
Kazuo Ishikuro
A dinosaur of the Forest
"TOUKERATOPS"
This "TOUKERATOPS" was produced by an idea
of workshop
for Mr. Oka coupled with my uncertain idea
"I might make some animal this
year."
Many spines, which was made by Workshop
was set on the back of
dinosaur.
Its artwork became double- or triple- collaborated work.
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Installation #8
Thomas May
Mountain-Cherry-Tree Garden
This is a combination between a cherry tree
with 5 trunks and a
grass ball.
The grass object is placed between and formed by the trunks,
but
they also protect it not falling down to the valley behind.
Both living nature elements together from a little garden
protected,
not accessible but touchable.
This garden is a human ideal in the center of a natural forest.
During the seasons both change their forms.
The garden will grow and can get wider.
For the trunks it’s
imaginable that
they will wind around the garden or open it like a blossom.
Both elements are living objects,set together in a new form at the start of a new community. |
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| Thomas situated another tiny
installations here. Could you figure them out? There are at least 2 more points he created like this in the forest … ^.^ |
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Installation #9
Yoshikawa Youichiro
A Path of the ownerless
garden
I make a small Path in the new forest.This path is not to go anywhere. Make a path for the path. Its path is twist and turn. Tree of hemp palm is standing ahead of the curve. Evergreen oak standing, dead tree standing. I want you to come and to that path. |
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Installation #10
Youko Kiga
Mizumichi
In the artificial forest
disconnected from modern life,
the
place where the former people
had worked is hiding here and there.
It is my pleasure to find outthe trace of the past of senior, which is hiding. |
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| In the forest near
Installation by Ri, ASADA situated this QR code for her visual installation to be observed … |
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Installation #11
Eung Woo Ri
A Drop of Dew
I've been working in the nature for many years
and usually got
an idea from the site
but I planned to build up something
growing to the sky by
bamboo
before I come to the forest in Yokohama.
I had to change the idea
soon after I arrived at the forest.
Fortunately I found the palm
instead of bamboo from the site
and it was very
light and more flexible.
So that I planned again
to make something hanging between the
trees.
The "Dew" comes almost every morning
but we don't see
it
in our usual
because it only appears
in the gray of the morning.
It's one of most beautyand pure in the nature! |
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| At the entrance, Thomas set the table for his Grassblade project to be created with the collaboration of the audience. You can leave your contribution here! |
If you find a problem in the site introduced in this post, the best contact address will be GROUP the Creation and Voice of the Woods. The events also receives grants from Culture and Tourism Bureau of the City 横浜市文化観光局. The contact address of the Bureau is
Minatocho,
Naka-ku, Yokohama, 231-0017
TEL： 045-671-3715 FAX： 045-663-5606
TEL： 045-671-3715 FAX： 045-663-5606
In any case, the
city office which is in charge of this forest is
Office for the Park Greeneries in the
North 北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government
Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016 (I guess in
Japanese only)
FAX: 045-316-8420 (I hope there is somebody who can
read English …)
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